Rostom was best known as “the Marilyn Monroe of Arabia.”
The veteran actress suffered a heart attack late Sunday and was rushed to a hospital in Cairo, where she was admitted to the intensive care unit. She first appeared in an Egyptian movie, titled “Ghazl Al-Banat,” in 1949.
With her blond hair and good looks, Rostom often played the sultry seductress, and quickly rose to stardom to become one of Egypt’s best-known actresses.
She won popular acclaim for her 1958 film “Cairo Station” about the city’s underclass and their struggles to survive. She starred in it with Youssef Chahine, one of Egypt’s most lauded movie directors. Among her other well-known films were “Love Rumor,” and “Struggle On the Nile” with Omar Sharif — the country’s most celebrated actor.
Born in Alexandria, Rostom defied her conservative upbringing to stake out a career in film. She was dubbed by fans the Marilyn Monroe of the Arabia and “the queen of seduction” of Egyptian cinema. She quit acting in 1979 because, she said, she wanted people to remember her as a beautiful movie star. Since her retirement, Rostom limited her appearance on TV and gave only few interviews to magazines and newspapers.
Her last public appearance came after Egypt’s popular uprising in January that forced former President Hosni Mubarak to step down. She expressed worries over path of the revolution.
